I Think Terri Wins

In the final hours, as often happens, the deals were made to reconcile the differences between the two chambers, and a whole bunch of legislation is pouring through the Massachusetts state legislature.

I haven't had a chance to find out how all those differences have been resolved in those bills, but my initial indicators are that an awful lot of them went in favor of the state senate.

For example, I know that the house side was adamantly opposed to the sentencing reform portion of the CORI-reform bill, and my understanding is that it is included in the final version. Likewise, the house wanted to eliminate the state's ban on medical companies' gifts to doctors, and included that in its version of the economic-development bill; but it has been removed in the final version.

Oh, of course there is one bill the house got its way on: the casino bill that the governor will almost certainly veto.

I don't want to simply declare senate president Therese Murray the knock-out, shutout, mercy-rule winner over house speaker Robert DeLeo, because like I said, I don't know enough yet about how all the various differences were reconciled in all the various bills.

But at first glance it sure looks to me like DeLeo traded away an awful lot in exchange for the one thing he wanted -- which he can't have anyway.